Have Your Kids Early in the Year

In my conversations around education, I often hear “Teachers think X”, or “All parents want us to do X”, or “No student will be happy about X”. I very often follow-up with a question to determine the sample size of this observation. More often than not it is a sample size of one. The individual teacher, parent, student (and other), are extrapolating their own views to be representative of their group and who MUST think like them.

I share this caveat as background, as I fully admit that my observations in this post are based on a sample size of one — me.

I am also asked for parenting advice. I get it. I have a job where we work with young people everyday and I have four kids of my own. So, if I could give parents or potential parents one piece of advice, it would be have your children early in the year, and the closer to January the better.

January birth dates are fresh in mind as two of our four children have just celebrated their January births — our younger son on January 11 and our older daughter on January 1. In particular, I often think of our older daughter and the good fortune of her birth. She was born in the early morning hours of January 1, 2001, following a long labour for my wife that began midday on December 31. I am convinced that had she been born just a few hours earlier, she would not have had quite the same range of opportunities she has and has had.

While we are trying to break it down, the last day of the calendar year is still largely defining in our school system. A few hours difference can mean being a grade apart. We have two children born in January and two children born in June and in July. I think all have had the advantage of being born in the first six-and-one-half months of the year. While I do believe it becomes increasingly less important as they become older, the extra time they have had in the younger grades is definitely an advantage and spurred on by confidence.

Our house is also a big sports home with all of our kids playing multiple sports in all seasons. And, again, in almost every sport January 1 is the date that separates some kids from other kids. I am convinced my January-born children would have had very different sports experiences if they were born in December. While over time it does even out, the advantage of the early birthdate can lead to a child being a little taller, a little more coordinated and mature, and can also lead to extra attention for sports opportunities than for a child born 10 months later.

So, if you are reading this and have a child with a late birthday, what should you do? I know what my parents did for me (a late-October birth). They didn’t tolerate suggestions from early primary teachers that I was “just a bit slow” and by about Grade 5, the birthday effect had all but disappeared. Another piece of advice — as hard as it can be, move away from comparing your child to others because we all develop differently.

More importantly — and I think this is a topic that should be resident in our consciousness — we should actually think less about age be it school, or sports and more about the stages of development and how these can be supported.

As I have shared my “sample size of one” I am curious if others have had similar or contrary experiences?

And one final note – a special thanks to my colleague Deb Podurgiel who has read each of my posts for the last five years before I hit publish in an effort to help save me from myself. She is leaving the school district to new adventures and the chances of me using their when I should use there are about to go up.

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25 Responses

Thank You for your kind words, Chris. Your blogs have always been timely, interesting, very pertinent to public education and passionate about education in general, and sometimes amusing *(* It has been a pleasure! DLP

I agree that kids all develop at different rates, so what mechanisms can we (school systems) put in place such that some kids may not start kindergarten until they’re six while others may start at four? Right now the entry at “the year he/she turns five” is all but set in stone in most districts.

Thanks Iain. We have definitely had some false starts in the past. Somehow we have a stigma attached to a delayed “K” entry – we use terms like “holding them back” which have such a bad connotation. We need to find a way to change this conversation.

An interesting topic Chris for sure. As my husband and I anxiously await the arrival of our second granddaughter we have had this conversation several times over the past month or two. This next little one was due on the 10th of January, and while she has yet to show any interest in arriving, our extended family was well prepared even before the holidays expecting that she could well decide to have a 2014 birthdate. But that said, we too were silently urging her to stay content into the new year knowing full well the ramifications of being a late December baby. My husband and I are both retired now, but after many long years of working with children, my husband as a psychologist and me as a teacher, we can both add lots of examples to your sample size. The interesting point here though is not then that families ought to be planning their families out so carefully as to avoid having children in the last three or six months of the the year, but rather what it is that prevents us in our culture from loosening up the system enough to allow for individual differences and needs of children to shift the deadlines to guidelines. With over 15 year of experience of working with highly gifted children in the Vancouver School system I can certainly offer up many, many different kinds of stories of age grouping being completely incompatible with the learning needs of individuals. Perhaps its time to once again open those conversations about ways within the systems that we can go about meeting individual children’s need more gracefully without compromising the system as a whole.

Thanks Betty. Yes, as we talk about flexibility and personalizaiton it would be wonderful to open up conversations around flexibility of how we group learners. Some really thoughtful comments – thank you.

I agree with you but sometimes the pregnancy happens and you don’t get to pick the date of birth! I have 3 sons – the first born at the beginning of December, the second in August and the third born at the end of December. The first started school and like you the teachers said ” he was a bit slow” – actually he was not ready for school – he did eventually catch up and by grade 7 the birth effect had disappeared. My third child I held back a year and he was much better in primary grades but in organized sports (you can’t change the birth date) he was always the smallest on the team. Thank you for sharing this with us because I often hear parents saying: ” I wish my child would of been born a few days or a few weeks earlier because I know he/she is ready for school”. January born children do have an advantage – specially boys – who I find mature more slowly than girls.

Nice to hear from you Miriam. Interesting that it seems academically and socially the birthdate effect, if present, does seem to disappear by the end of elementary school but often the sports trajectory is set at a young age and doesn’t shift so easily.

My second daughter is a November baby. Another thing to add to the topic is social development with in the same grade. In the primary years it was very interesting to navigate the social aspects. At times she had very little in common with her older January/ February classmates. Sometimes it was a tough road for her as they did not want to play with her as she was too young. That too evened out with time but it is something for parents and teachers to keep in mind. Cindy

Thanks Cindy. Yes, beyond the talk of academics and sports there is definitely a maturity issue. A January-born child entering K with your child would have been on the Earth almost 20% longer in the September of K – this likely will be a huge difference in growth and maturity. It does seem to even out – but I know it was also something I faced when I was young. Looking back, many of my friends were actually fellow late birthdays when I was in primary grades.

Through absolutely no planning on my part I had all three of my children in the first four months of the year. With possibly some influence by me and a great deal by teachers and community, they all have excelled in their educational pursuits and are all undergraduate or post-graduate students. None of them experienced learning challenges, although social and emotional development fluctuated and I was always grateful that they had that extra maturity to help them through. Admittedly not a huge sample group! No real answers to the question of birthdate and school entry, but definitely believe that all children need to feel emotionally safe and socially competent to learn.

Hey buddy – our girls’ due date was Dec 24. Although they were born a bit before this, they are still late in the year babes. Our thought process around the kindergarten start has been more focussed on time spent with us as a family. My wife runs her own business but works more afternoons and evenings. This means she has time in the day with the kids. Once school starts for them, time spent with them will be significantly less. A parent of a child born on Jan 1 can have an extra year with their child born on Dec 31. When you consider the work of Gordon Neufeld on attachment and the fact that it works for our family, we have decided that we want more family time and will never get this opportunity again. If my wife worked less in the evenings and more during the day, we would have likely registered them for K for next year.

Just another thought on the disadvantages of having a late in the year baby (or 2!).

On another note, prior to having kids, I had no idea about the never ending comparatives parents face. Percentiles, advice, looks, school choices, preschool choices, discipline… even questions about toileting – parents cannot win – some may even call the race to toileting a good ole “peeing contest”.

The constant pressure to be “ready for K” adds so much stress and I think sometimes takes away from the importance of a child being with his/her family when he/she is young.

As I await the birth of my first child (he/she is due Feb 3) I must admit that as a teacher I was very eager to have a child in the early part of the year and tried to plan it this way. I though it was just me being a bit silly, but I’m glad to know now that I’m not the only one who has thought this! Although I must also admit that a downside of an early baby is that I’m going to have to pay for a full extra year of daycare since I plan to go back to work after maternity leave!

No Sarah – there are lots of us out there. This is another theory I would like to test out on this topic. My guess is that teachers have more babies in the first 3 months of the year than the general population. Again, no data but I would be curious if well planning teachers have also taken this into account.

It is an interesting debate and you mentioned two of the points that I wonder about the most. My first child was born in November, and while he is only 14 months old, I am already wondering if holding him back will be the right choice. His readiness will be the most important determining factor, if he is not ready, he will wait a year before entering kindergarten. My other thought went towards sports. It will be a hard conversation for him to understand why he goes to school with one group of kids but has to play sports with another. If there is a difference is size that is substantial with the January kids, will he become discouraged early in sports if he isn’t as strong right away? Academically, will he be able to catch up, will holding him back weigh on his esteem… Only 3 more years to debate this question.

Thanks Remi. While I know it is “only sports” it is definitely something families think about. I actually have spoken to far more people concerned about how their child’s birthdate would affect them in sports rather than school. Maybe it speaks to the kind of people I hang around with 🙂 It is interesting to read comments from different jurisdictions that have different cutoffs for schools and sports – and they have the same debates – just at different times of the year.

And one more note with sports – one sport my kids do is summer swimming and it has different cut-off dates. Summer swimming uses November 1st and May 1st as its cutoffs and athletes stay at an age group for 18 months – it is interesting to see some November and December children excel in ways that they may not because of age groupings of other sports.

Always tough – Im a December 14, my sister is December 15 – we both started “on time” but had very different journeys through school. But my advice (when adked) is “no matter which choice you make, it was the right one” – I dont think being in ‘the next cohort’ wouldve benefitted me in any way (easy in hindsight) but the athlete-connection that that Gladwell makes is evident when my daughter (february) hits the hardwood….
Id like to wonder if maybe my football time wouldve been longer (and more productive if i was the ‘oldest’ in the class, but in hindsight i dont think i wouldve made the phonecall to ubc to see if i could “walk on” if it had been ‘the next year’ – my parents made the right choice.

Agreed Ian – I think I would have had to be “red-shirted” at least two years if I wanted to have a successful high school athletic career. It does seem that it is an issue that gets far more attention now that it did when our parents were deciding for us.

Of course, we could really mess things up and change the school (or sports) cut-offs to December 1st or October 1st . . .

I like the ‘red shirt’ idea – mind you I’ve also been thinking about stuff like ‘grade ten’ – core programs by one teacher with ‘enhancements’ for students as/when needed – kinda like an option for the junior who is ready for ‘the next level’ without needing to be a senior!

Like you, we have four kids. The December 31/January1 ‘marker’ is SO arbitrary, and parents need to learn to ignore it and really watch their own kids and their development, and then make decisions based on the child, rather than this arbitrary date. Our eldest was born late in the year but went off to Kindergarten when he was four years old. He was four for three months in Kindergarten. But, he was ready for it. When he got to Grade Twelve, we couldn’t imagine him being in Grade Eleven. However, our youngest was also born late in the year, and, contrary to what we did with her elder brother, we decided to keep her at home one more year, and entered her in Kindergarten when she was quite close to six years old. We did get a fair amount of ‘those’ looks which seemed to imply, “You’re holding her back? She’s going to be a year behind!” But, we just felt she was not ready for Kindergarten…or maybe it was partially we were not ready for our youngest to be in Kindergarten. Probably a combination of both! And, when she was in Grade One, I could not imagine her being in Grade Two, and when she was in Grade Eleven, I just knew she would not have ‘fit’ in Grade Twelve. So, parents have to decide for themselves what is best for their child, and not base their decision totally on dates that the school system uses as markers for determining how and when your child enters school.

Thanks Peter – what an interesting experience you have had. It is interesting how much “gut feel” really goes into whether to delay K entry one year. And everyone I have spoken with, regardless of their decision feels it was probably the right one to make. We actually probably “know” when our child is 4 if they are ready for K regardless of what day or month they were born.

My all 3 kids born in four first month of the year. My eldest who is January born is always really good and confident in his academic, also, part of his school basketball team. Lately, I’ve asked him why he’s not going out with his friends that much, and he came up with the idea of he’s being so mature while his friends still in their childish stages(he is grade 9).
My second is April and by grade 3 he gained his confidence about being really good at math or reading, but it took lots of energy from my part of encouraging him… .

My youngest is kindergarten now but I still have some challenging situation about him. He is February born, he started reading when he was 3, knows his math and reading to the end of the grade one by now if not more, his brain constantly working, his teacher still doesn’t even know that he can read at all, as he is so shy. Socially I think he fitted with his classmate but on his academic part, I’m worried about loosing his interest by the time they get to the real writing and reading, and don’t know what to do, or private school as I’m personally not a fan, would be a better fit or what should I do!
These are some other aspects that you can think of, when you have a January or February born kid!